Going Live

Ready to launch your new website? Take a look at the following list to ensure that
you cover all of the major areas to test and review before going live:

Content Quality

Provide high-quality content on your pages, especially your homepage. This is the
single most important thing to do. If your pages contain useful information, their
content will attract visitors to continue to come back to your site. In creating a
helpful, information-rich site, write pages that clearly and accurately describe your
topic. Think about the words users would type to find your pages and include those
words on your site.

Make sure techniques from the writing for the web page are used to make content easier to skim (headings, bullet points, brief paragraphs,
etc.)

Pages

All pages have been checked for consistent layout, including search results page

Proofreading

Read everything. Even if you’ve already read it, read it again. Get someone else to
read it. There’s always something you’ll pick up on and have to change. See if you
can reduce the amount of text by keeping it specific. Break up large text blocks into
shorter paragraphs. Add clear headings throughout, and use lists so that users can
scan easily. Don’t forget about dynamic text too, such as alert boxes. Take a look
at the Writing for the web section for detailed guidelines.

Content is free of spelling and grammatical errors

Style of writing is consistent across the site

Capitalization (especially for pages and headings) is consistent

University related buildings, centers, degrees, and positions are written and capitalized
correctly

Treatment of bulleted lists is consistent (e.g. using periods at end of list items)

Text is not displayed as an image, except in the case of logos, charts, or infographics

Images on each page have the desired alignment and are sized correctly

Images uploaded to slideshows fit and are positioned correctly (e.g. a subject’s head
is not covered by an overlay)

Links

Don’t just assume all your links work. Click on them. You may often forget to add
“http://” to links to external websites. Make sure your image link to the appropriate
places. Also, think about how your links work. Is it obvious to new users that they
are links? They should stand out from the other text on the page. Don’t underline
text that isn’t a link because it will confuse users.

Responsiveness

Check to make sure content you have created is Mobile – Tablet responsive. This means
that the content of your page is resized and rendered to fit the screen of the output
device. Templates developed for use in the content management system are designed
to be responsive along with most of the assets and snippets. You may use the link
below to check if your newly created page is responsive.

Functionality Check

Test everything thoroughly. If you have a contact form, test it and copy yourself
so that you can see what comes through. Get others to test your website. Sit back
and watch how a user uses the website. It’s amazing what you’ll pick up on when others
use your website differently than how you assume they’d use it.